The Best Hotel Website Design | 6 Luxury Designs for Inspiration
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A luxury hotel’s website serves, really, as its first handshake with potential guests. A luxurious, intuitive, and engaging website sets the tone for the experience before they even step foot on the property. It can elevate a luxury hotel’s brand, attract travellers with certain tastes, and convert casual browsers into loyal customers. In this blog, the KIJO team curated 6 of the best hotel website design examples that epitomise excellence in digital hospitality. From seamless booking interfaces to breathtaking visuals, these designs are perfect sources of inspiration for creating your own slice of online luxury.
What Do the Best Hotel Website Designs Do Well?
The best hotel website designs don’t just promote their accommodations — they invite potential guests to start their guest experience with the hotel online, evoking excitement and confidence:
- Prioritise User Experience (UX): The best hotel website designs are intuitive, with easy navigation and clear calls to action. Guests can effortlessly find information about rooms, amenities, dining, and booking.
- Use High-Quality Visuals: Luxury hotels leverage captivating photography and videos that showcase the property’s ambiance, rooms, and surrounding attractions. They immerse their visitors in a predominantly visual experience.
- Offer Seamless Booking Processes: These luxury websites provide a smooth, frustration-free booking experience with transparent pricing, real-time availability, and flexible customisation options for their discerning guests.
- Reflect the Brand Identity: The best hotel website designs communicate their unique brand story and aesthetic through cohesive design elements, from typography to colour palettes and their copywriting tone.
- Incorporate Mobile Optimisation: Recognising that many high net worth travellers browse on their phones and on-the-go, the best hotel website designs are expertly designed with mobile in mind. This ensures the functionality and beauty of the website on any device.
- Highlight Social Proof: Guest reviews, awards, and trust badges are often prominently displayed to build credibility. These reassure esteemed potential visitors of the hotel’s luxury quality.
- Include Local Experiences: The best hotel website designs go beyond showcasing the property. They offer valuable content regarding local attractions, insider tips, and curated experiences to help guests solidly envision their stay.
KIJO’s 6 of the Best Hotel Website Designs
Danny Findon-Kent, KIJO’s Senior UX/UI Designer, reviewed and analysed 6 of the best hotel website designs. Chosen for their intentional, brand-influenced designs and pristine, mindful functionality, these websites showcase exactly how to make a high-end hotel stand out.
1. The Real Hotels
The Real Hotels are curated hotels from the popular television series ‘The Real Housewives’, meaning you can check in to the American hotels and resorts featured on the reality show.
Why We Like It: Danny appreciated the “luxury but playful typography style.” on The Real Hotels website. “I like the use of the sticker animations on the text too. The off grid layout makes an intriguing aesthetic to the website. This is complemented further by a sleek scroll animation. This gives a nice, polished feel to the website.”
2. Erzscheidergaarden Hotell
Erzscheidergaarden Hotell is a historic hotel located in Røros, Norway.
Why We Like It: Danny thought that the Erzscheidergaarden Hotell’s “bold, bright colour palette has been used in a clever way. It very much keeps the luxury feel of the hotel and this is notoriously hard to do with bright colours. The typography style accompanies the colour scheme very well, and the booking widgets and bottom-page navigation are easy to use. The layouts are a little off – this would be the only thing I can fault on this website.”
3. Park Lane
Park Lane is a new 5 star hotel located in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Why We Like It: Danny loved this “very classic, sophisticated boutique website, particularly its regal gold colour palette. The use of serif fonts elevates this feel across the Park Lane site too. In addition, the use of high-quality, well composed images, and thin line details really helps sell the feel of the hotel.”
4. Grand Hotel Miramare
Known as “The Mira”, the Grand Hotel Miramare is located in Santa Margherita Ligure – the Italian Riviera, Italy.
Why We Like It: Danny was struck by the “bold, all-caps typography” on the Grand Hotel Miramare website. “It’s well complemented by the italic, angled font used for the titles across the pages. The website does a great job at feeling luxurious even with an extremely bright colour palette of reds and yellow. As mentioned earlier, this is a tricky balance to strike. This creates a very unique feel to the website. The custom cursor is a very nice touch on the sections that contain videos too.”
5. Rosa Group – KIJO’s Best Hotel Website Design
The Rosa Group is a group of hotels based on the Spanish islands of Lanzarote and Tenerife. The 100% family run company has been operating since 1951.
Why We Like It: Danny was impressed by the “deep, luxurious colour palette” on The Rosa Group website. “The palette has been paired with oversized, large text. This creates a sense of modern luxury. The scroll engagements and confident use of negative space really direct the user through an explorative journey of the website. The beautiful photography really sells the hotel, and out of these six hotels, this website tops my list in terms of design.”
6. Dalhousie Castle
On the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, near the town of Bonnyrigg, you’ll find Dalhousie Castle. Dalhousie can be dated back to the 13th century, and is Scotland’s oldest inhabited castle. It boasts “royal hospitality and impeccable service” as part of your stay.
Why We Like It: Danny appreciated the “refined, luxury feeling” that the Dalhousie Castle website captures. “It hosts modern design techniques throughout; from the large typography, to the expansive, full-screen imagery, to the off grid layouts, it gives a really nice, modern touch to such an old castle. The designers know this, and even draw attention to it in their footer: “Where History Meets Modern Luxury”. This is a great example of how knowing your brand can truly influence your website design; marrying key messaging, branding, and design aesthetic fluidly.”
The Best in Hotel Website Design
From seamless navigation to stunning visuals and neat, sophisticated touches, the best hotel website designs clearly deliver a blend of luxury and functionality. Most importantly, they leave a lasting impression.
Drawing inspiration from industry-leading designs can spark ideas that can elevate yours. Remember, your website is often the first step in your guests’ journey. It’s vital you make it memorable, engaging, and a true, authentic reflection of your hotel’s unique essence.
Need some support in harnessing this? Get in touch with the KIJO team today.
Book a Complimentary Consultation with KIJO’s Head of Partnerships
Discover how our expert team of professional website designers can help create a beautiful, luxurious hotel website for your exclusive property. Book a complimentary, 30-minute consultation with our Head of Partnerships & Co-Founder, Kirk Thompson. During your consultation, we will review your website’s current performance, discuss your goals, analyse competitor insights, and explore the potential of a WordPress-powered site. Let’s bring your vision to life—book your free consultation via the link below:
